


Fire

by Malind



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Brother/Brother Incest, Corruption, Dystopia, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fictional Religion & Theology, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Protectiveness, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Slow Burn, Twincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:03:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malind/pseuds/Malind
Summary: Their goddess lived among them, choosing human children to become like her, to rule the world at her side.  Darius' brother was the next chosen but Anstice chose to inflame the world instead of bring it peace, although not for long as death took him at the age of twenty-two.  Darius, however, wasn't convinced of his brother's death, always felt he was out there, somewhere.  And he searched for six years to that end until, finally, he found him.





	Fire

The air inside the room had long ago stagnated from the cringe-worthy odors of stale bodies coated with copious, stale perfumes.  The plumes of smoke and alcohol did nothing to soothe Darius' nose or eyes.  The room probably hadn't been cleaned in a good year, evident by the crusts of dust in between the floorboards and insulating the walls. At least there were no puddles of wet or dried-up puke or even cum stains surprisingly.  The whores lined the walls, ornaments that could be brought for a short while for a disturbingly small amount of money.  The music pulsating the air from the band in the corner, the shouts and screams from other rooms that could just barely be heard over it, it all punished his ears.  It was like any other whorehouse, or at least Darius assumed so.

And it was the last place the Divine should have been.  It was not the place Darius, a man who'd had nearly the same chance of being chosen as the Divine twenty-eight years before, thought he'd ever find his bother.  Well, at least, he'd prayed his twin wouldn't be there as much as he prayed he would be.

Despite the numerous distractions, Darius kept his eyes trained to the man secured to the far wall, spread open by several metal cuffs over his wrists and ankles, his neck pulled upwards by his collar and chain.  If one ignored the slave bondage, looking at the man, it was like looking into a mirror, although one that had changed Darius' coloring from inky black hair and naturally brown skin to one of shockingly white hair, even with the grime coloring it, and pale, scarred skin that suggested death, the marks of a God, or, as far as everyone else in this room was apparently concerned, someone who'd just born that way.  But this man who'd once been the child of the Goddess was obviously very much alive, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow, his lips pressed together into a thin line as an eager hand man-handed the hardness as his groin.

Everything in Darius told him to take advantage of the trembling, damp grip on the switchblade at his hip he'd pulled out even before entering the whorehouse.  This area of the city had the highest crime rate of anywhere in the country.  That people risked venturing into it spoke well of humanity's addictions.

Next to him though walked Darius' friend, Zarek, and reminder that they'd agreed, even before coming into the city, that they'd be smuggling Darius' brother out, not cutting him out of this forsaken place.  Darius completely regretted even suggesting it at that point. But numbers were not on their side, nor the law.  Nor was his wallet.  He couldn't afford to buy his bother out of this place and he didn't have the time or, at least, the patience to try. 

When they were close enough to hear his brother's muffled grunts, Zarek gripped his arm, then dug blunt nails into it when Darius tried to keep going to save the man he no longer knew.  Lips almost touched Darius' ear probably in an effort to be sure the words were heard as Zarek growled, "Stay here.  I'll pay for him."

The man's voice was lined in an anger Darius didn't contemplate, not in face of his bother.

The hand gripped tighter, causing pain somewhere in Darius' mind, but he barely registered it.  It was a threat that just barely worked.  What more worked was the pressing knowledge that he couldn't fuck this up no matter how much he wanted to run up to his brother and save him.  This could very well be their only chance, unless he could somehow scrape up the coin to hire some undesirables to do it for him.  But with his mother and himself having barely the coin to eat, that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Then the hand released Darius, and he was left to stare at his twin, the boy he'd grown up with, the teenager who'd made him question everything around him, the man he'd barely gotten to know.  The seconds that trickled as he watched his flesh and blood be molested by a laughing woman encouraged by the women standing near her.  Occasionally, she swatted the length with a leather cat-o-nine tails, which gained a sharp intake of breath through his brother's nose every time, his nostrils flaring.  Darius found himself doing the same.  They were obviously trying to get him to come.  And judging by the strain in his brother's face, his whole body, it was working, slowly but surely. 

Darius' breaths became gasping pants.  His simple tunic and breeches stuck to his dampening skin.  His muscles trembled with the need to rush forward.

He knew he should have torn his gaze away, looked elsewhere, saved himself from this misery, but this was his bother going through this, the man who had half of his soul, a person he loved more than life, the one he'd been searching for for countless years that felt like hundreds when it'd only truly been six.

He couldn't fuck this up.  He couldn't.

"'K, ladies, times up," a gruff but nonetheless womanly voice stated over the din of the room.

The young woman still managed to slide her hand a bit up and down the length as her attention was grabbed and she groaned, glaring at the mistress of the house.  "But we paid for a good fifteen minutes!  He didn't even come!"

"And by my count, you had a good twenty.  Best off finding one you can actually afford, love."

The patron scoffed, standing up, flinging the thing in her hand away so that the gradually softening cock nearly hit the man's leg at an odd angle.  Darius' brother shuddered as the women left, his eyes still closed, his ragged breathing rippling the hard muscles of his chest.  Then Zarek stepped into Darius' line of sight and the one-sided connection was broken for the first time in nearly five minutes.  Without hesitation, Darius sidestepped to look back upon his brother, wanting desperately to run to him and free him.

As the mistress released Darius' brother from the chain and cuffs that kept him firm against the wall, the mistress went on with, "Since you're new here, a bit of advice: Keep the restraints on.  This one tends to be a bit, ah, 'passionate'."  She straightened and grinned knowingly at Zarek as she handed the neck chain attached to a thick collar, that blinked with a tiny red light, to a burly guard.  "But I guarantee you'll come back for more.  They always do.  There's a panic button near the door.  Use it, if you must.  Or, again, seriously, just keep him chained up. You have an hour."  And then she was off towards the group of women who'd apparently chosen a new slave to release their aggressions on.

Darius wanted to stab the woman.  So fucking badly.  Unfortunately, though, his small switchblade probably wouldn't have made it through her layers of fat.  Really, he wanted to stab everyone in the room, just for daring to look at his twin who'd once been the child of the goddess, Tanith.  It was obvious though that these people had no inkling of what dwelled within their grasp, well, beyond the obvious albinism that glowed in the dim, smoky room.  If they had, his brother would have already been killed for daring to still exist or sold privately to some rich asshole who would have liked nothing better than to have a former god under their heel or chained to their bed.

The guard yanked a bit on the chain as he walked away.  Darius' brother had no real choice but to follow, his eyes finally opening but never looking at them directly, his feet stumbling over themselves, his body meek and making Darius wonder at the mistress' warning.  There was no way to know how long he'd locked in the same position against the wall, waiting for someone with the coin to buy him and a room for an hour.  Darius and his friend followed as well, although Darius' knees seemed to weaken with each step as his stomach churned.

To think Anstice, the name the world knew his brother by, a name given to all children of Tanith, had once been so strong, had once challenged the order of the world.

_By Tanith, please, let this work.  Don't forsake your son any longer.  He's paid for his rebellion.  I can't bear to see this..._

When Darius stepped into the room behind Zarek, Anstice was already being fastened with iron to the bed so that his cheek was to the bed and his backside was up in the air, pushed up by his bent knees.  Darius had to press his lips together to force himself to not swear at the thickly muscled guard who arranged the limbs with disturbing ease.

When Anstice was finally served up like a roasted pig on a table, the guard left the room without a word and shut the door behind himself.  At the click of the latch, Darius rushed forward but was blindsided by Zarek who grabbed onto him and held him against his chest, hissing, "Don't.  Remember what he's been through.  He might not be the same person you knew.  And you don't even know for sure that it's him."

Darius bucked at the restraint.  "We must free him!"

Zarek grunted at the elbow to his stomach but didn't let go.  Darius' friend was unfortunately considerably larger than Darius himself and used to conflict, being a guard for their city that'd had more than its fair share of conflict with the neighboring regions, not to mention the crime within.  It was why Darius had begged him to come with him to do something Darius knew he wouldn't have been able to do on his own, especially not if things went to shit.  It'd also helped that he trusted Zarek with his life.  Now, that choice seemed to be working against him.

Forced to step back a bit with a brutal shove that only took Darius along with it, Zarek spat, "I want to get home to my little ones and my wife, Darius.  And you must get home to your mother.  Use your brain!"

Darius' comparably slim body fought at the restrain for a moment longer before he whispered tearfully, "Please!" 

His heart felt like it was breaking all over again for the millionth time in six years.  This man clamped to the bed was his life, his heart, the only thing that had truly kept him going for these six years as he'd searched every dank corner of the country for Anstice, although admittedly mostly on the computer at the library. It was only when Anstice's photograph along with a blunt description had shown up on some buried website on the internet a couple of weeks before that he'd been given the inkling of true hope.

The caging arms refused to relent until Darius nodded stiffly and whispered, "Okay.  Okay, we'll speak to him first."

"Try to, you mean.  You saw his eyes?  He's drugged out of his mind."

No, Darius hadn't noticed.  He'd been too far away downstairs to really get a good look.

As much as he didn't want it to be true, it was common knowledge that places like this kept their slaves docile with various concoctions.    Darius didn't know if such a thing was good or bad but, if his brother had been drugged all these years, there was a good chance that Anstice didn't even truly remember the previous six years as Darius did.  If anything, Anstice probably saw the last six years as pure, continuous nightmares.  He might have even been insane.  But there was no way to tell either way until they actually tried to talk to him.

Darius nodded, trying to appear much calmer than he actually was as his heart tried to beat out of his chest.  "Okay, I understand.  I do.  We'll talk to him first.  Okay?"

Zarek nodded after a moment's hesitation and then let him go.

Dropping the backpack next to him on the floor, edging forward, Darius tucked a long lock of thick black hair that had gotten into his eyes and stopped when he was a couple of feet from the bed.  His blue eyes traced over the length of his brother's body as Anstice laid kneeling on the bed, his chest pressed against his spread thighs, his arms spread out to either side of him, his neck chain latched to a hook over the headboard.  Over his skin was the evidence of years of abuse.  Scars littered the pale skin, angry against it, looking like china smashed on the ground and then hastily glued back together.  But beyond the scars and the whiteness of his body, their bodies looked the same, faded freckles and all.  He knew without a doubt this was his twin, as if he hadn't the moment he'd seen his photograph online.

"Atish?" The childhood name came from his trembling lips with no thought, given to the one who was indeed Darius' fire.  Though he'd whispered, the single word seemed to scream in the room.  Or perhaps that was just what he wanted to do.

Anstice's eyes didn't open.  The only suggestion that Darius had been heard was the brief quickening of breath.  But Darius couldn't know if it'd been recognition or just plain fear and anticipation or something else altogether.

"D-do you understand me, Atish?"  He tried hard to make his voice quiet, soothing, but couldn't stop the trembling that broke his words.  His heart broke for the million and oneth time.  And then he was disengaging the locking mechanism on a wrist, needing to end this torture that had been going on for far too long. 

He trusted Anstice with every ounce of his halved soul.  His brother had never hurt him, not purposely.  Anstice had protected him, loved him, shielded him when the world had wanted to eat him alive for simply being the anomaly that he was, the twin of a living god, something that'd never happened before in their thousands of years of spoken and written history.

Perhaps, though, that need to protect Darius had been the underlining cause of his family's downfall after living for twenty-two years in the palace.  It wasn't the first time Darius had thought it, but he hadn't been able to suggest such things, not even to Anstice, because the selfish, fearful part of him hadn't wanted Anstice to stop, knowing what might happen if he did.  In the end though, the worst possible thing had happened anyway.

The trigger easy to unlatch, Darius had gotten a scarred-up wrist undone in less than a second, his panicking breaths seeming to rouse Anstice as much as the release.  That freed hand instantly latched onto Darius' throat with inhuman strength.  At a time, Anstice had been much stronger, when he'd still been a child of the Goddess, had held a part of her inside of himself, but his strength now was still frightening and overpowering.  Darius' hands instinctively flew to the hand that squeezed without mercy and clawed at the flesh there, trying to get it to release him, opening new wounds although he didn't mean to. He couldn't choke out even a breath as the hand clearly sought to kill him.  The hand then yanked him so that he was partially underneath his brother, Anstice's nearly colorless eyes wild and quite clearly mad.

And then, there was recognition underneath the madness.  Darius was sure there was--he was so fucking sure there was, that what he saw wasn't just confusion--right before a loud crack sounded in the room and Darius fell on top of him, cheekbone meeting Darius' forehead in an uncontrolled slam.  Then a hand grabbed Darius' arm and yanked him from underneath Anstice's body until he stood again in front of Zarek who then grabbed him by both upper arms to hold him upright as Darius teetered, his own feet unable to hold him.

A panicked glace shot over Darius' coughing mouth and throat, even as Darius tried to pull away, before giving him a shake. "Damn it all to fucking oblivion, Dar," Zarek blurted, saliva hitting Darius' face, an exchange of spit.  "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"He..he wasn't t-trying to kill m-me," choked out of Darius' bruising, spasming throat, even as he continued to try to struggle out of the hands with a bit more effort, the dizziness beginning to dissipate.

"By Tanith, yes, he sure as fuck was," Zarek huffed out, half hysterical as he looked imploring at his friend's face.  "Why did I ever agree to this?  I've tried so hard to..."  Zarek gave the older man another shake.  "That man is not your bother! I don't care what he looks like. Your brother died, his body burnt to ashes and given back to the goddess six years ago.  There was no conspiracy to kill him!  He just died!  He just fucking died, and he wasn't sold off to some whorehouse!  When are you going to get that through your thick head?!"

Darius jaw tensed to the point of pain as he sought to deny every word just spoken to him.  With as much force he could muster with a whisper, he forced out of his wrecked throat, "It is him.  Believe me, Zarek.  I don't know... know how you can deny what's in front of you.  You can't... deny he looks exactly like me!  That he looks like Anstice.  Please...  Please, Zarek, help me get him out of here!"

Right back, Zarek said, "The only reason I came with you was end this, to prove to you this man isn't him.  It isn't.  Even if by some ungodly chance it is him, physically at least, it's not the same person and never will be."

His coughing fit more or less abated through every swallow hurt, Darius stared at the other man with tear-filled eyes as he drowned in so many emotions, a fevered mix of betrayal, fear, hope, anger, love.  Seconds later, he said, "Are you going to help me or not?"

"By Tanith...  No.  No, I'm not going to help you.  It would be insane to help you."

The weight over Darius felt like a sledgehammer to the chest.  "You could have told me that before you agreed to come."

"No one else would have helped you, Dar.  No one.  We have a new chosen one, a new Anstice.  The world has had a peace these last five years that it hasn't had for decades.  The turmoil your bother created...  Help me, I'm not going to repeat the truth....  Dar, for your mother's sake, for your own, you need to leave this behind you."

Trembling with the effort to control himself, Darius forced out of his burning throat, "I'm getting him out of here, Zarek.  With or without your help."  He ripped himself out of the other man's grip, although he couldn't tell if was by his own strength or Zarek simply let him go, and did his best to make a straight line with every wobbly step to the bag he'd left on the floor.

Words followed him:  "I've loved you like a brother for so many years, Dar, since we were kids.  You've been my friend.  You're the reason I joined the guard when my dad begged me to work in the family business.  I wanted to protect you, you know.  I'm trying to protect you now."

Darius spared a look to his brother, making sure he was still breathing, then went back to staring down at the bag as his friend's words boiled in his body.  "I don't need to be protected.  I never was Anstice and I'm no one now.  I'm so tired of everyone treating me as if I'm going to crumble at any moment." 

Even his brother had treated him as if he was inherently weak.  He knew that.  But the overwhelming affection he'd always felt for Atish trumped over that and somehow made it okay. With his brother, he'd always felt unconditional love, a connection he'd never found elsewhere, not even with Zarek whom he loved dearly although that love was now being severely tested.

Darius grabbed the bag and walked past him and back to the side of the bed and saw the blood marring his brother's white hair.  When Zarek said nothing, only stared at him, Darius swallowed past the swollen lump in his throat and added, "You should go back to your family.  I'm sorry I asked you to come with me."

Zarek took a step closer.  "Dar, I..."  He grabbed Darius' arm again.  "Fuck, I can't let you do this."

Stark blue eyes glared.  "If this doesn't happen, it'll never end, I swear to you.  I'll never let it end."

The hand dropped, and Darius ripped his gaze away, rummaged through the bag, and pulled out a small device on which he'd spent every coin he could scrounge up.  The modified device was quite illegal outside of the hands of law enforcement.  Even slave owners couldn't own one.  The devices they could own were calibrated solely to their own slaves.  Its only purpose was to secure and remove the collars around slaves' necks.  All slaves' necks, as required by law to differentiate and subdue them.  The collar themselves did far more, from keeping track of vital signs and administering needed drugs of both sex and labor slaves, to tracking, to a timely death by way of a small radius explosion that severed head from body if the slave tried to escape or tried to remove the collar.  Unfortunately, understandably to Darius, it was a common way for slaves to kill themselves, but suicide rates were surprisingly low amongst slaves.  Probably because they were generally kept in chains.

Darius came up to keel on the bed and immediately pressed the pins into the collar at the back.  The collar popped open with little fanfare.

"You're making such a big fucking mistake, Dar..."

Slipping the surprisingly light contraption from around his brother's neck, Darius admitted, "Maybe."

And he knew he might have been, probably was, if he had any hope for a semi-decent future by society's standards.  He wasn't that stupid.  He might have also been making a mistake because, while he was sure this man was his other half, felt it in his halved soul, he knew Zarek might be right:  Atish might have lost his mind years ago and not be the same person.  He also knew, if his throttled neck was any proof, that he might find that truth out sooner or later with an untimely death. 

...As if that really mattered if he didn't do this.  He already knew he wouldn't be able to live anymore knowing his brother suffered every moment of his life, sane or not.

His hand touched the skin at the back of his brother's neck, then glided to his throat and felt the pulse of his heart, felt its heat, its life, and it bought new tears to his eyes.  "Everything he did for me..."

"He wasn't the only one who loved you, Dar."

A smile cracked despite the unshed tears.  "I know.  But I can't let him suffer like this.  I still owe him my life.  If he takes it-"

"I'll kill him."

Snapped out of the moment, wide-eyed, Darius jerked his gaze at his friend.  "You can't."

"I will, without hesitation. For more than one reason."  Zarek stepped forward. "If you're going to do this, it's time to leave.  You should have left that damn collar on until he woke up.  His device is off.  Someone probably already noticed."

"I realize that, but I couldn't, I can't..." Letting the words trail off, Darius worked off the remaining cuffs with minimal effort.  "You shouldn't have knocked him out."

"Bullshit but that's mote now. We'll just have to carry him."

"There's no way we'll make it out the door with him like this."

"Well, we're only on the second floor."  Zarek then turned and strode to the nearest window facing the alleyway.  He opened it and searched the area quickly with his eyes.  "There are a couple dumpsters down there.  Maybe we could tie a pillow around his head and drop him out the window.  I can drive the car around."

Darius rolled his brother over and straightened out Atish's limbs and then pulled the blanket over his naked body.  The pillow wasn't a bad idea considering the knock on the head Zarek had already given Atish but he wasn't about to drop his bother out a window.  "I'll just go out the window first and you can lower him to me."

There was a pause and Darius feared his friend might change his mind about going along with this again, but finally, Zarek said, "Okay, let's do it."

Darius pushed off the bed, put the device back into his backpack, shouldered the bag, pulled the bundled man off the bed, and began to drag him towards the window.  Zarek came to help after only a few steps.  His twin wasn't overly heavy even though he was well-muscled, and they had little trouble getting there.  Darius wasted no time in crawling out the window, landing with a considerable bang on hard plastic only a few feet down, and then raised his hands as Zarek pulled his head back inside the room.  

Growing increasingly anxious, so much so that Darius feared he might pass out soon from the stress of it all, overly pained in too many places, he forced a quiet, hissed, "Lower him down."

A knock sounded on the far away door in the room.  The window closed. 

His heart stopped before it thrashed inside of his chest.  "No...  Zarek, NO!"


End file.
